By David Hinds

A LOT has been written and said about former President and now Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo. Some of it has been extremely uncomplimentary. In this regard, he has been characterised as a dictator, a manipulator and a racist. These characterisations have come not just from his detractors in the opposite parties, but very importantly, from some of his former comrades.
I take the view that Mr Jagdeo represents a challenge for Guyanese politics that should not be easily dismissed. After all, it is our very complex and sometimes complicated political practice that threw up Mr Jagdeo. In other words, he may be out of order for some, but he is Guyanese.

Many within the PPP and beyond wished he would cede centre-stage, but he stubbornly refused to go away. He himself said that he was done with mainstream politics, but now in 2015 he is the de facto leader of the PPP and the country’s Opposition Leader. In fact, many had long contended that his promise to leave active party politics was part of a larger deception that is a staple of Jagdeoism; he was in fact the not-so-hidden hand behind the Ramotar presidency.
What is patently clear is that Mr Jagdeo is a force to be reckoned with. He seems to bother his detractors with his unapologetic and aggressive demeanour. In the face of attacks from the other side that he has been a most negative influence on Guyana’s political culture, he has presented a confident if not arrogant response. This has led his former comrade, Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo to describe him as “pompous,” while Joey Jagan has dubbed him an “ethnic bully.”
But these descriptions have not moved Mr Jagdeo. He seems to operate in a world that blocks out the reality and perception of his role in dragging Guyanese politics to a place of disrepute. Or maybe he simply assumes that his stewardship of the country is a new norm that the rest of us don’t quite understand. Whatever it is, the name and the person Bharrat Jagdeo further complicates an already complicated Guyanese political landscape.
It is now beside the point whether Jagdeo engineered his way to the Maximum Leader’s seat within the PPP or PPP leaders genuinely feel that he deserves the office. He is the PPP leader and if the Chief Justice’s ruling on term limits is upheld, he could become President again. The ruling parties and Guyana as a whole have to get used to that reality. Of course, such a scenario could be torpedoed by a conviction in the case he has before the courts or any other charges and convictions in the future. But in our circumstances those would be a long shot.
If his shepherding of the PPP’s flock in Parliament this past week and his fighting address to the House signal anything, it is that a Jagdeo-led Opposition would not be a pushover. Ominously, his stewardship could well test the tolerance level of the Government for aggressive dissent. That has been the test for all of our post-independence Caribbean leaderships – how to maintain a democratic process and culture in the face of dissent that is disruptive, sometimes disrespectful and that borders on destabilisation. It is a test that most Caribbean leaders, including our own Burnham and Jagdeo, have not negotiated well.
Finally, while Jagdeo may be a pariah to most, he is clearly a hero to many. The latter cannot and should not be discounted. In our ethnic reality, we cannot choose leaders for ethnic groups. Therein lies Jagdeo’s legitimacy: Indian-Guyanese, or most of them, want him to be their leader. They demonstrated it in their response to his electoral message, which the opposing parties and sections of the Indian-Guyanese community found to be most distasteful.
In the final analysis, Bharrat Jagdeo tests the limits of our fragile political architecture. How the country responds to it is a matter of speculation at this point. But the signs are not promising.

‘Bharrat Jagdeo tests the limits of our fragile political architecture…and while Jagdeo may be a pariah to most, he is clearly a hero to many…the latter cannot and should not be discounted’